Top 20 Alternative Sources of Traffic for SMB’s on Tight Budget

Dallas based SEO Consultant, Qamar Zaman, enumerates the top 20 alternative sources of traffic small and medium sized businesses can use to increase leads and sales.

Aside from SEO, Email Marketing, Paid Search, and other marketing tools that can help businesses drive traffic to their websites, Qamar Zaman, CEO of Submit Press Release 123 , suggested that they should also make use of these top 20 alternative sources of traffic.

Qamar listed the following alternative traffic sources:

Facebook,

Kindle,

Twitter,

Craigslist,

Yahoo Answers,

Quora,

Squidoo,

Instructables,

Pinterest,

Vimeo,

Reddit,

YouTube,

Tumblr,

Press Releases,

StumbleUpon,

Blogs,

Forums,

Scribd,

LinkedIn, and

Google+.

With over a decade experience in helping SMEs achieve their goals using effective online marketing strategies, Zaman created this list to help those who are in tight budget to get alternative sources of traffic that can bring in relevant prospects.

Facebook

As of this writing, Facebook has over a billion active users, no one would leave it out from this list. Small businesses can use its popularity to drive traffic to their websites through organic ways or through their advertising program.

Kindle

Who doesn’t hear of Kindle? Those who are closely following the latest trends in web technology, for sure know how this mobile device (and app) from Amazon has revolutionized how consumers buy and consume their books these days.

According from a survey conducted by Nielsen (http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/the-connected-devices-age-ipads-kindles-smartphones-and-the-connected-consumer) those who own Kindle are somewhat wealthier compared to those who owned other brand of devices. Industry statistics (http://www.statista.com/statistics/276508/global-market-share-of-amazons-kindle-e-readers) also shows that in 2008, Amazon had a $158 million revenue from e-books sold and consumed through Kindle.

Qamar said that business owners, lawyers, or writers should consider putting their e-book content in Kindle if they have plans to monetize their work. They can offer their e-book products for free at first to attract prospects and create buzz about their brand. Later, they can put a price on them once more and more people have known their brand.

Twitter

As a microblogging platform, Twitter is the most popular one. With about a billion total registered users, it is certainly not something any business owners can ignore. According to statistics, 85% of Twitter followers tend to be more connected with a small business or brand after following them.

Qamar advises that if a small business want to increase their website traffic using Twitter, they should focus more in creating compelling content and automate their schedule of publication. Creating conversations can also help in convincing prospects to dig in deeper about a business or brand. A more detailed tips on how to use Twitter for marketing is detailed on this blog post (http://news.oneseocompany.com/2015/03/17/twitter-marketing-strategies_201503171204.html).

Craigslist

Having 60 million users with 50 billion page views per month makes Craigslist one of the most promising platforms when it comes to driving relevant traffic to a business website. This networking platform has an average of 80 million classified ads being posted by its members monthly.

Qamar advises those who want to use Craigslist to drive traffic to their website to establish first their presence inside the community. He said that it is also recommended to find out first if Craigslist members are their ideal target audience. He recommends this Hubpages.com article (http://reynoldswriting.hubpages.com/hub/UseCraigsList-GenerateFreeTraffictoYourWebsite) to everyone who wants to learn how to use Craigslist to increase website visitors.

Yahoo Answers

With 26 million unique visitors, Yahoo Answers is considered as the 2nd most popular Q&A website. One of its best features that allows its users to put a link to their website is the source box. Qamar advises that it is important to establish an authentic profile first and contribute value to the community. Next, is find questions that are highly relevant to a business’ product or brand. He recommends this blog post (http://www.sitebuildertips.com/yahoo-answers-traffic-guide-how-to-get-traffic-from-yahoo-answers-388) to learn more how to use it properly without being labeled as spam.

Quora

Same with Yahoo Answers, Quora is a Q&A platform mainly run by its members. It is one of the most promising Q&A startups that attracts many big investors. The main thing that attracts small businesses to Quora is its culture of encouraging people to participate and promote their website inside the community. Qamar recommends this detailed tips (http://www.quora.com/Can-I-use-Quora-to-promote-my-website) on how to use it to promote your website.

Squidoo

This platform allows its members to create their own pages known as “lens”. In 2010, it was reported that its members had created 1.5 million “hand-built lenses”. Squidoo is now acquired by Hubpages.com. Qamar advises those who are planning to use Squidoo to make sure of building a highly reputable profile first inside its community. He recommends this lens (https://www.theturngroup.com/blog/how-to-drive-traffic-with-a-squidoo-lens) for further reading on how to use Squidoo to drive traffic to a business website.

Instructables

If a business is focused on the creative side, they can make use of Instructables platform to attract prospects who are interested in DIYs and the like. They allow their users to upload DIY projects wherein other members can rate and comment on. Qamar recommends this blog post (http://www.instructables.com/community/Using-Instructables-to-increase-traffic-to-your-Et) on how to use this DIY sharing platform to drive traffic to a business’ money site.

Vimeo

This platform is quite similar to YouTube. Anyone can create and upload videos in there for free. Qamar advises business owners that they should only use Vimeo if the platform is the most suitable one for their target audience. Qamar suggests that business owners should imitate how this member uses his/her Vimeo profile (https://vimeo.com/increasewebsitetraffic) to create backlink to its money site and YouTube channel.

Reddit

Popularly known as a social bookmarking website, Reddit is also a social networking platform wherein most of its members bookmark text posts and links. Small businesses should take advantage on how Reddit is utilized by its users. According to Google Ads Planner, in 2013, males (59%) were the dominant Reddit users. Qamar recommends this blog post (http://trendblog.net/how-to-get-traffic-from-reddit) for business owners who want to learn tips on how to drive traffic to their website using Reddit.

YouTube

There are 4 billion video views on YouTube daily and 6 billion hours of video watched monthly. These figures are the main reflection on how gigantic YouTube is when it comes to number of active users and the potential of traffic that it can drive to a business website. Qamar encourages those who want to learn how to use YouTube to boost the traffic of their website to read this blog post (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-ways-to-use-youtube-to-drive-traffic-to-your-website).

Tumblr

This popular microblogging platform hosts 243.3 million blogs and unlike Twitter, they don’t impose any character limit. In 2014, Tumblr had a total of 420 million registered users and still one of the most popular blogging platforms these days. Qamar recommends these tips (http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-get-traffic-from-tumblr-article-60.php) for those who are interested to incorporate Tumblr in their social media marketing campaign.

StumbleUpon

This platform is described as a discovery engine which allows its users to bookmark posts and links they wanted to use for later purposes. According to StumbleUpon, their total number of registered users had reached over 25 million in 2012. Just like any other social bookmarking sites, Qamar suggests that it is important to create a reputable profile first inside the StumbleUpon community. He recommends this blog article (https://blog.kissmetrics.com/increase-traffic-with-stumbleupon) for those who want to use it to drive traffic to their money site.

Blogs

Probably the most famous platform used by marketers worldwide, a blog is a cost-efficient marketing tool that is quite helpful in boosting leads and sales especially for small businesses. When 61% of US consumers have made a purchase after reading a blog post, it would be a very bad decision if blogging will be left out from a business’ marketing strategy. Qamar recommends this blog post (http://news.oneseocompany.com/2015/02/23/daily-blogging-for-more-website-lead-generation_201502231146.html) for those who are not yet quite acquainted on how to use blogs to promote their products online.

Forums

Forums are the earliest platform that allow users to create topics, post comments, and discuss all sorts of issues on the web. In fact, the reason why the internet is so huge is partly because of the millions of forums that are proliferating all over the web. Qamar recommends this blog article (http://upfuel.com/how-to-use-forums-to-drive-traffic-to-your-blog) for those who want to learn how to use forums to drive traffic to their blogs.

Scribd

This digital library has already hosted over 60 million documents on its open publishing platform. As of this writing, it has a total of 80 million users. Aside from eBooks, it also hosts audiobook and comic book. Qamar suggests to business owners to check this link (http://www.sylvianenuccio.com/generate-organic-traffic-using-scribd) to learn how to use Scribd in driving traffic to their money sites.

LinkedIn

This platform is the leading professional networking website in the industry. As of this writing, it currently has more than 350 million active users with a geographical reach of 200 countries and territories. Qamar writes a step by step details (http://news.oneseocompany.com/2015/05/14/lead-generation-expert-helps-grow-business-using-linkedin_201505141261.html) on how to make the most of LinkedIn’s Relationship tab. He suggests this article (http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224454) for those who want to use LinkedIn to drive highly targeted traffic to their money sites.

Google+

Although lagging behind Facebook (and even Twitter), Google+ is still a no-nonsense social networking fixture that is well integrated into Google Search and the rest of Google’s web products. With 300 million in-stream active users, Google+ is still a worthy social networking website wherein small businesses can promote their products or services.

About Qamar Zaman

As a Dallas-based digital marketing expert, Qamar Zaman has been serving small businesses all over the city and beyond for over a decade now. It is managed primarily by its CEO – Qamar Zaman who has been in the web development and online marketing business for over a couple of decades. He can be contacted through 972-437-8942. Qamar and his team also blogs frequently.